This invention relates to an automatic toll collector for collecting tolls from a driver on a toll road by withdrawing the toll from the bank account of the driver.
On toll roads for vehicles on which the toll depends upon the distance traveled along the road, the collection of tolls requires a human attendant at each toll gate of the toll road. The conventional method of collecting tolls is as follows. When a vehicle is about to enter a toll road, the driver of the vehicle must stop at an entrance toll gate. There, the attendant of the toll gate inputs information concerning the vehicle, such as whether it is a small or large vehicle, into a keyboard, and based on the information which is input, an automatic ticket machine issues a ticket which the attendant hands to the driver. The ticket contains punched holes in which information such as the date, the toll gate number, and the type of vehicle is encoded. Upon receiving the ticket, the driver can enter the toll road with his vehicle.
When the driver wishes to exit from the toll road, he stops at an exit toll gate and hands the ticket to an attendant at the toll gate. The attendant inserts the ticket into a card reader which deciphers the information encoded in the punched holes of the ticket and calculates the toll. The attendant then manually collects the toll from the driver of the vehicle, after which the driver can exit from the toll road.
Since much of the process of collecting tolls in the above manner must be performed by human attendants, it is a slow process. When there are a large number of vehicles trying to enter or exit from a toll road, the time required to collect the toll for each vehicle leads to the formation of long lines and causes traffic backups on the toll road itself near the entrances and exits.
Furthermore, not only is it necessary to pay the toll gate attendants for their time spent collecting tolls, it is necessary to pay workers to collect the cash which was received as tolls from the toll gates at the end of the day, to count the cash, to check records, to perform other clerical duties, and to supervise operations, so that the collection of tolls entails significant labor costs.
In addition, at interchanges and rest stops along toll roads, drivers traveling in opposite directions sometimes exchange tickets with one another, whereby a driver can obtain a ticket issued at an entrance toll gate near to his destination and reduce the toll which he has to pay upon leaving the toll road. Although the exchange of tickets is illegal, using the conventional toll collecting method, it is impossible to detect such illegal practices and therefore they can not be prevented.